How to Tap the Power of the Mainframe

Rejuvenate, Don’t Replace

Instead of replacing mainframe systems – a task that IT teams often find too costly, too time-consuming and too difficult – modernize them by leveraging modern tools and processes that make it easier to enable cooperation and integration between “systems of record” and “systems of engagement” for initiatives like data analytics and mobility.

Don’t believe all the industry chatter you may be hearing. The mainframe remains deeply embedded in large organizations, setting the standard for reliability, security and availability for mission-critical data and transactions. For example, the new IBM z13 mainframe can handle the load of 100 Cyber Mondays every day, 365 days a year. Currently, mainframes process 30 billion business transactions per day, and enable six trillion dollars in credit card payments annually. A whopping 80 percent of the world’s corporate data also originates on the mainframe.

For certain applications, the mainframe is simply irreplaceable, and in fact, we may be at the beginning of a mainframe upswing. IBM’s most recent earnings showed a healthy revenue growth for zSeries systems, built to support the explosion in mobile applications. Recent studies have also shown that in many instances, mainframes are more cost-effective and generate more revenue per infrastructure dollar than commodity servers. In fact, it’s the latter that is plagued by low utilization rates and higher TCO, including management, security, rack space, cooling and electricity fees.

So it’s no surprise that 88 percent of CIOs believe the mainframe will continue to be a key business asset in the next decade, with 81 percent reporting that their mainframes continue to evolve — running more new and different workloads than five years ago. In this slideshow, Compuware has identified five ways forward-thinking organizations are tapping the mainframe’s power.

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